Artist's sketch of the proposed design for the Gran Ferrocarril project.
Pavian, addressing the annual Socialist convention at the Cerveza Sagrada beer-garden, said, "Socorra cannot welcome the revival of gothocapitalism within our lands, as this supposed high-speed railway represents. This railway will not transport people or goods, but Freekishmen and their rifles! Kravenites and their bloodthirst! Milogradians and their cacophonous sickness! No, we must condemn these plans and let our anger known in the most brutal form known to man; that of protest of the word, of the thought! We must take to the page, with our pens, and let President Salvador Cuevas tremble under the weight of a thousand letters!"
Nonetheless, leading Agustino figures have defended the railway, with foreign minister and brother of the late President Anacleto Crespo, Amerigo Crespo, saying, "This railway will not transport Freekishmen, Kravenites or Milogradians; rather, it will transport their guns, tanks and munitions. Additionally, Freekish and Gothic civilian materiel will flow through the railway like water, but without electrocuting the rail wires and doing serious damage to passengers, and will be the first step of the New Plan to redevelop Socorra. The frothy liquid of commerce will subjugate the barren liquid of technological disparity once more! The corporate froth will seep through our ports, its briny foam bringing all the nations to our homeland with their guns and...will. As Socorrans, we will sing the praise of the foam once more! We will drink the froth of corporations! We will be seeping joyously with the bloody embers of free trade!"
The Gran Ferrocarril will have eighteen stations, ten at coastal cities. The old railway's focus upon now-depleted mines will not feature, with Philae CEO Josephine Hammond saying, "The Socorran mining industry has been non-existent for decades and basing the Gran Ferrocarril on it would be economically crippling for Socorra. President Cuevas seeks to industrialise his homeland, and knowing this it is imperative that we adjust our plans to accommodate demand for rapid transport to towns, where any Socorran manufacturing sector will be based. Furthermore, an industrialised Socorra will undergo dramatic changes to a service-dominant economy within a generation and therefore must have the institutions and machinery prepared for two dramatic restructurisations of its society."
Cuevas' rapid industrialisation plan, enabled by Gothic investment, will oversee the rebirth of Socorra from an agriarian- to manufacturing-based economy. The External Secretariat's emphasis of Socorra's strategic location has enabled the government's 'Bolts for Bases' doctrine, meaning Gothic states or other entities will be able to claim naval basing rights with a $10bn investment in Socorra. Cuevas was elected by the Council of Deputies last month after the death of President Anacleto Crespo, whose 33-year Emergency Government imposed ultra-protectionism due to Crespo's philosophy of autarkism, which emphasised national and individual self-reliance. Cuevas, the first non-merchant president since 1927, has already destroyed autarkist influence in Socorra and inaugurated a new era based upon 'cultural, economic, political, social' modernisation that promises a 'pan-Gothic society' within ten years.
Cuevas himself has faced opposition across society, with agustino and extremist unrest rising with each new policy. Nonetheless, the Gran Ferrocarril is the first shot in liberalising Socorra - whether it will last is the question.